Meeting
of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences

Tuesday, April 30, 2002

President
Rupp convened the meeting at 12:10 p.m.

1.In
opening the meeting, President Rupp noted that this would be his final meeting
as convening officer of the faculty of Arts and Sciences. He, thus, elected to
briefly call attention to some important achievements.

· He noted that the Arts and
Sciences had achieved financial stability, even in the face of difficult
economic challenges.

· He cited the enormous
increase in selectivity that has occurred in General Studies and Columbia
College admissions.Student quality has
been considerably strengthened.

·He pointed out that significant enhancements have been achieved
in a number of Arts and Sciences department.

·He noted that the Ph.D. program in the Graduate School had been
significantly strengthened since 1997 when the enhancement plan was first
announced, and the Graduate School has become somewhat smaller and more richly
supported.

·He reminded faculty of the substantial investments that have been
made in the physical plant leading to improvements in quality of life at the
institution.

He acknowledged that there
was more yet to be done and indicated his firm belief that President-elect
Bollinger would be continuing to attend to these matters.

He also observed that the way in which the faculty,
the central administration and the Arts and Sciences had worked together to
address these important agendas was particularly noteworthy.

In response to a request from Professor Grieve,
President Rupp spoke about the Italian Academy.He reminded the faculty that it is an institution-wide, not an
Arts and Sciences entity; however, he recognized the importance of the Academy
for a number of Arts and Sciences units.President Rupp noted that David Freedberg, Director of the Italian
Academy, had recommended that a committee be established to consider the
charter.President Rupp indicated his
belief that it would be at least next year or the year after that before the
committee could be appointed, noting that he would leave to his successor
responsibility for determining the timing of such a review.

2.It
was moved and seconded that the minutes be approved as prepared.Professor Rebay raised objections to the way
in which the discussion of the Italian Academy had been characterized in the
minutes of the February 13, 2002 meeting.He wished the minutes to reflect the fact that Professor Freedberg had
indicated that he would welcome the appointment of a Columbia committee to study
the Academy’s charter.The minutes were
subsequently adopted with provision for Professor Rebay’s point to be included
in the minutes of the April 30, 2002 meeting.

3.The
report of the Executive Committee of the Faculty was presented by Patricia
Grieve, ECFAS chair.She began by
alerting the faculty that they will soon be receiving a ballot for the election
to fill ECFAS vacancies.Professor
Elaine Sisman, as chair of the Steering Committee of the Chairs, urged faculty
to vote when they receive their ballot.

Professor Grieve also
reported that she had received emails about the site acquisition reserve.She indicated that faculty are seeking
assurances that the reserve will remain in the Arts and Sciences budget and that
the monies will also be used for expansion of the Arts and Sciences both north
and east of the Morningside Heights footprint.

Professor Grieve noted that
concerns had been expressed regarding the size of the FY 03 salary
increases.Faculty are concerned with
their position relative to our peers.They also have concerns about salary levels of long-term faculty.

Professor Grieve called the
attention of the faculty to the new undergraduate advising website.Citing it as particularly impressive, she
encouraged faculty to take time to review it.She also noted that having a school-based, advising website of that
quality merely reinforced the need for additional support for departmental
websites.

Professor Grieve indicated
that the proposal to create renewable term appointments for lecturers was still
being considered by ECFAS.She
indicated that she looked forward to the proposal moving to the point of
readiness for discussion by the full faculty of the Arts and Sciences early in
the fall.

At the conclusion of her
remarks, Professor Grieve expressed on behalf of herself and the entire Arts
and Sciences faculty a special thanks for the nine years of service that George
Rupp had provided to the institution.

4.Vice
President Cohen began with a series of updates.

·He
reported that the Faculty Senate had voted to make Continuing Education a
degree granting school and had also voted to approve its first master’s degree
program.He reminded faculty that the
decision to create Continuing Education as a school had had its origins in the
recommendations of the Academic Review Committee.

·Vice
President Cohen provided an update on the Science Planning Review.He indicated that the Academic Review
Committee had completed its work, strongly endorsing a science initiative.Consistent with the academic review process,
the full report has been sent to the science departments with instructions for
the faculty of those departments to deliberate on the recommendations.Vice President Cohen is currently in the
process of meeting with the chairs of the individual science departments to get
a summary of each department’s comments and responses to the report.He will then meet with the science chairs as
a group to discuss the themes that have emerged from the individual
departmental discussions.The report
will be on the agenda of the May meeting of the departmental chairs and will
simultaneously be forwarded to ECFAS for review and comment.It is expected that a discussion of the
science initiative will be on the agenda of the fall faculty meeting.

Before concluding his
remarks, Vice President Cohen also indicated his desire to recognize, on behalf
of himself and the faculty, the contributions of President Rupp.He cited the criticality of President Rupp’s
support in addressing challenges and making advances in the Arts and Sciences,
and expressed his deep appreciation both personally and professionally for his
commitment and contributions to this effort.

5.Prior
to opening the floor for discussion of the proposed FY 03-07 budget, Vice President
Cohen made the following prefatory remarks.These remarks were in addition to those included in his April 24, 2002
letter to the faculty.

·He
reported that the Arts and Sciences was on plan for the closing of the FY 02
budget.

·He
indicated that planning for the FY 03-07 budget had been particularly
difficult.He noted that the Arts and
Sciences will sustain significant revenue reductions.On the expenditure side, he cited the major investments made in
advancing the schedule to reach full funding for graduate student financial aid
and the impact of establishing the site acquisition reserve.He indicated that the Arts and Sciences had
partially addressed the revenue losses by increasing undergraduate tuition at
greater than the previously budgeted rate.Peer institutions are doing so, reflecting the general vulnerability to
such factors as the downturn in the equity markets, lower interest income on
cash balances, etc.He noted that there
is a sizable one-time surplus in FY 02 that can be carried forward.He reported that, even with the above
actions, a gap remained.A portion of
the gap was generously covered with assistance from the central administration
of both recurring and non-recurring resources.He called the faculty’s attention to the fact that the operating budget
was in balance in FY 03 and FY 04, but not in FY 05.With carryover of the FY 02 surplus, the Arts and Sciences will
be able to close the budget in balance at the end of FY 05.Given many uncertainties, FY 06 and FY 07
can only be considered as placeholders at this time.He reported that, in meetings with the Faculty Budget Group and
the departmental chairs, he had indicated that he sees the budget as highly
constrained, but not in crisis.

Vice President Cohen then
raised the matter of the faculty salary increases for FY 04.He indicated that he was mindful of the
difficulties that departmental chairs were having in the salary recommendation
process this year.He reminded faculty
that a 4% increase on the salary pool was the default level in the budget.The Arts and Sciences was able to manage a
5% pool in the two previous cycles (FY 01 and FY 02); however, it was unable to
do so for FY 03 salaries.Vice
President Cohen acknowledged awareness that faculty salaries and graduate
student financial aid were the two highest priorities of the faculty.He indicated that, while substantial
improvements to graduate student financial aid were included in the FY 03
budget, it was not possible to achieve both that objective and a 5% increase in
the faculty salary pool.

With regard to faculty
salary levels in the Arts and Sciences in comparison to peers, he noted that
the most serious discrepancies are at the junior level.He reported that it has been necessary to offer
highly competitive salaries in order to recruit the very top junior
faculty.On the positive side, this
reflects the capacity of departments to now compete for the best available
junior faculty.Unfortunately, the
market-driven offering salaries are creating a compression problem.The Arts and Sciences, however, simply
cannot afford to address this compression across the board.Going forward, it will plan to make even more
substantial increases at the time of tenuring than the current 20% to address
the compression.

Vice President Cohen then
opened the floor for discussion.

A question was raised about
the site acquisition reserve and whether there would be a role for ECFAS in
discussions regarding balancing longer-term space needs with near-term needs
such as faculty salary increases, graduate student stipends, etc.Provost Jonathan Cole reported that there
had been considerable discussion with the deans and vice presidents at the
Resources and Priorities meeting when the site acquisition reserve was
announced.He reminded faculty that
space is close to the top of everyone’s list of the most critical needs for the
long-term health of the university.He
expressed the belief that it is prudent to begin putting aside resources now so
that the institution will be able to respond to opportunities to expand its
footprint as they arise.

A question was asked about
the actions being taken to address the lecturer in language salaries.Vice President Cohen reported that the
increases for lecturers in language come from the same pool as other faculty
salaries and, given the budgetary situation, it is unlikely that it will be
possible to do anything substantial for the next few years.The Arts and Sciences has been working to
raise the bottom of the range, but he acknowledge that more remains to be done.

It was observed that faculty
who have chosen to stay at Columbia their entire career and not seek outside
offers, may find themselves at a disadvantage in this period of limited salary
increases.Professor Steve Kahn noted
that one way to address the

compression with respect to junior salaries would be
to take monies from the seniors.He
suggested that the Arts and Sciences consider setting two pools—a lower one for
senior faculty and a higher one for junior faculty.Vice President Cohen reported that the Arts and Sciences has
tried to allocate the pool in such a way as to give chairs the maximum
flexibility in deploying available funds.

The question was raised from
the floor as to whether there are plans to move all master’s only programs out
of the departments.Vice President
Cohen noted that master’s only revenues are key to achieving the full funding
program of the Graduate School Enhancement Plan.Dean Henry Pinkham reported that there are no plans to increase
the size of department-based MAO programs, but that the size of some Ph.D.
programs are dependent upon maintaining the revenue streams from those
departmentally based programs.

A concern was raised about
the percentage of the budget spent on instruction, noting that it has been
declining consistently for some years.It was suggested that it might be useful to look at the trends and
internal shifts that may be occurring across instructional lines.Faculty also suggested that it may be
important to think about the budget of the Arts and Sciences in its entirety,
that is, the aggregate of the central and school budgets.In particular, school-based investments in
administration should be balanced against the need for greater investment in
faculty salaries in the Arts and Sciences central budget.

There being no new business,
President Rupp by consensus adjourned the meeting at 1:25 pm.